The third dimension of good news, resurrection news,
according to Archbishop Rowan Williams, is about death. You will perhaps forgive a little cynical
story. Some ministers, when first
ordained and turned loose upon decent people… if they do some good, it may very
well be a triumph of grace over stupidity.
It’s also smart, generally speaking, for parishioners to beware of
ministers at this early stage if they have just read a book. I had just read a new publication from a fine
Lutheran teacher, Oscar Cullmann, and it was entitled, Immortality of the Soul or The Resurrection of the Body. The book is somewhat dated now, but Cullmann
makes an important point, very startling back then, that Christian scriptures
do not teach what we call immortality.
This is indeed so, but as I found out it is tricky territory for the
novice parish minister.
Rowan Williams however who is not a novice puts it quite
bluntly: Christians really ought to be much more critical than they often are of
the idea that we survive death. We
don’t. We die… and God restores our
relationship with him. Dr Williams
says we don’t have a little bit of us called Immortal Soul which hangs on after
death. John Brown’s body lies a’mouldring in the grave, but his soul goes
marching on… This is the glib sentimentalism
of many about death, including many Christian adherents. We do not know what lies beyond death. Neither, I may say, do atheists or anyone who
insists, as though they have some special insight, that we return to the cosmic
dust and there is nothing more to be said.
Resurrection people die in the confidence that, as with Jesus, life is
transformed (“changed”, writes St Paul), and restored, and love is unbroken. That is what we call resurrection.
Jesus repeatedly counselled us not to be afraid. Why are
you fearful? And indeed a major consequence
of a discipline of contemplative life and prayer is the calming, over
time, of our most earnest inner fears – often simply variants of the fear of
death. The fear of defeat, for instance,
of dying without having done what we thought we would or should do, or without
having been able to repair what we damaged.
The fear of change, because I might not be able to cope with it. The fear of powerlessness, perhaps, of not
being there any more to influence what happens, not being present to others
we’ve always been present to, not being able to make our will prevail any more…
leaving it to others. A dear church
lady, within hours of death, and quite at peace with that, still thought it
necessary to say, “Please tell those women to make sure someone gets the milk…”
She meant, for the cup of tea after the funeral service.
Jesus’s resurrection says that God calls us through death to
life. I have no idea how. But then, the process of growing and maturing
in faith has become in numerous ways a process of unknowing, of choosing
to be still, of trusting, relinquishing control... which includes not needing,
necessarily, to understand. We journey
towards our own mortality in just the way Jesus did – in quiet trust. It is as well to have as little unfinished
business as possible, but sometimes that turns out to be a luxury too far. Time or circumstances may mean there are
still loose ends and unresolved issues. In
contemplative life and prayer we are always aware of our mortality. We go on in company with the risen Christ and
by faith in him.
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